DRACOMATON (2023)
Project Description
Dracomaton is a top-down roguelike bullet hell where you swap between multiple playstyles on the fly. Equip yourself with various Forms that have different strengths and weaknesses, OR Mod existing Forms with the characteristics of other ones!
Contributions
Facilitating Design Discussions
My core role as Design Lead was to facilitate weekly design discussions. The focus of these meetings adapted to the needs of the project, but always fit into one of a few themes.
Ideation and Brainstorming Sessions
At the start of a sprint, I set up meetings to be freeform discussions about ideas we wanted to see realized in the game. Many of the brainstorming meetings were on the topic of new Forms - movesets that encourage different gameplay styles with unique abilities. Once we had plenty of ideas jotted down, we'd fill out templates on the Form's expected strengths and weaknesses, its synergies, and the ideal moment-to-moment loop. During our meetings, I led discussion over which Forms would be easy to prototype out of those with strong loops, and we voted as a team on which we would implement.
Template for brainstorming Forms
Snippet of a Design Philosophy Doc on Form Strength and Complexity
Design Philosophy
By far the most important type of meeting were something I called Design Philosophy Discussions. These discussions had a simple goal: develop restrictions and guidelines for each area of our design, and reevaluate the intended purpose of each system and mechanic that needed a change. When setting up these meetings, I'd write down a series of core questions, and we would propose ideas until we found something actionable that we could implement and playtest. We got a lot of success out of properly identifying our current problems and addressing them as soon as possible, and these meetings were integral to getting those solutions down on paper.
Example: Form Philosophy Guidelines
Must be modular
All abilities must have consistent rules so that mod logic applies properly to each
Must have a “mini-objective”
Abilities must synergize in a way that lets the player have cool moments by using them properly for maximum value
Must fulfill a niche
There should be a reason to swap to this form instead of using other forms
Resolving the Issues of the Design Pipeline
The Design Board
At the end of our first sprint, our producer led a series of one-on-one discussions about the current state of development. One of the issues commonly expressed among the team was that no one really understood the inner workings of the design department, meaning other departments didn't really have an idea what deliverables we were expecting, or what we planned for the game at all.
I proposed the solution of having a Design Board that would track the progress of each item currently being discussed in design, its relevance to each department, and our expected deliverables from each department. This massively improved our communication with other departments, as they now had a place to view our work without needing to explicitly be filled in about our department meeting notes.
Internal Changes
At the start of development, there was no real formal process for design approval. For several months, we would hold brainstorming meetings, determine what to prototype, cement our decisions prematurely, and then aimlessly break off into our own tasks - implementing abilities in-engine, pivoting to new brainstorming prompts for items and enemies, or focusing on systems. With tasks all over the place, we would end up sitting on prototypes in-game that got little attention and would sit in unfun, clunky states for weeks on end.
After seeing some stagnation internally, I developed a comprehensive document that laid out the issues with our current pipeline, and with proposals to make tasks consistent and aimed at our Design Philosophy goals. This document completely rehauled our workflow as an internal team, allowing us to get out over 7 different Forms with fully realized movesets over the next 4 months, when before we had struggled to fully polish even one Form in 2 months.
Design Documentation
All decisions that were formalized through discussion were eventually written down in GDDs and shared across the entire team. Our Core GDD links to documents made by members of our team and was maintained by myself and other designers. An example of my work is the Mod Document, which details and diagrams the logic and behaviors behind the Mod System.
Snippet from the Mod GDD with mind-blowing graphics
Form Design
Forms are unique player movesets that can be swapped between on the fly, each with their own "mini-objective" gameplay loop that encourages the Form's abilities to be used in synergy. I had a hand in creating quite a few Forms from ideation to final implementation, but the one that required the most iteration and design work will be detailed below:
Spider (Graffiti) Form Initial Pitch:
Gameplay Loop:
Primary attack dashes and leaves a trail behind the player, and connecting the trails forms a web that explodes on impact. Secondary attack hooks enemies into the web and stuns them.
Core Issues:
Primary ability is completely melee-based - not modular and does not support the Mod System well
"Mini-objective" of connecting trails is so complex that it takes away from core gameplay instead of supplementing it
Secondary ability of pulling enemies in was barely auxiliary to the primary trail ability, and was not particularly synergetic
Spider Form (Release Day, August 2023):
Gameplay Loop:
Primary attack shoots webs that stick to walls, and connecting two creates a damaging, slowing web between them. Secondary ability pulls enemies into webs for massive damage.
Problems solved from previous iteration:
Simpler loop, easier to get value out of without explicitly forcing the use of ability synergy
Secondary ability now synergizes much more nicely with the primary ability since pulling enemies into webs deals bonus damage
Primary ability is a modular projectile - works appropriately with other abilities
Core Issues:
"Mini-objective" is still requires a bit of setup, and is weaker if not used correctly
Secondary ability does not have inherent value unless used for pulling enemies into webs, since having enemies closer to you is generally undesired
Spider Form Final Version (Content Update, December 2023):
Gameplay Loop:
Primary attack shoots webs that stick to walls, and connecting two creates a damaging, slowing web between them. Secondary ability shoots out a damaging sniper bullet that gains extra damage for each web it passes through.
Problems solved from previous iteration:
Abilities still synergize for bonus damage, but are functionally strong without relying on particular strategies
Secondary ability is now useful independently, dealing solid damage while keeping the player at a safe distance
Systems Design
I contributed to the design of each of our systems through internally-led discussions, which were then implemented by our programming team. Below are some examples of some of the systems I worked on:
Battery System
The goal of the Battery System was to encourage players to swap between their Forms on the fly. Our intended gameplay loop was that players would have to change their playstyle constantly by adapting to their attained Forms, but most players stayed on one Form no matter what incentives were given to switch. After an informal design discussion, we developed the Battery System. The Battery System drains the current active Form and is no longer usable when at 0 battery and must be recharged by switching. Surprisingly, adding this penalty to our game actually met our goals of prompting players to constantly switch their Forms, but kept it lenient enough to experiment stress-free before running out of battery.
Mod System
The Mod System really became our core pitch, beyond the ability to swap on the fly, because it exponentially increased ways players could express themselves and make decisions by creating unique runs. Instead of equipping a new Form as one of your main weapons, you can instead choose to equip it beneath one of your existing Forms to "mod" it and give it powers of the other Form.
This system is modular enough to support any combination of Forms, including multiple mods on one Form, leading for some crazy and unpredictable powers. Rather than balancing each exponentially complex combination independently, this is where our Design Philosophy really helped us out. By maintaining a consistent framework of simple, modular, and unique Forms, each Mod was easily applicable to every Form in the game instantly, letting us playtest and tweak numbers with a more holistic approach in mind.
Notice how the characteristic of the Form as a weapon gets translated into a modular add-on for another weapon!
Forms when equipped normally:
Tennis Form shoots tennis balls that bounce around the screen
Flame Form emits flames that ignite enemies
And when modded by one another:
Tennis Form with a Flame Mod ignites enemies with tennis balls!
Flame Form with a Tennis Mod causes bouncy flames!
Final Notes
A lot of time and passion went into this project, so a lot of my work on miscellaneous tasks wasn't able to be highlighted here. Some of my other responsibilities included level design, implementing 3+ Forms, regular balance changes using Google Sheets, and contributions to the Mod Evolution System. If you have any questions or would like to know more about my work on this project, feel free to email me or reach out to me on Twitter!Â